1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a refrigerator and a control method thereof, and, more particularly, to a refrigerator for preventing the generation of frost and a control method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a refrigerator comprises freezing and refrigerating chambers for storing foods, a heat exchanger for heat-exchanging a refrigerant compressed by a compressor and condensed by a condenser with air in the refrigerator, and an air blast fan for circulating the air, in the refrigerator, cooled by the heat-exchanging into the freezing and refrigerating chambers.
The refrigerator serves to make ice cubes as well as to store foods at a low temperature. Conventionally, in order to obtain ice cubes, a user must fill an ice cube tray with water, put the ice cube tray into the freezing chamber, and then wait for a considerably long period of time. Therefore, the above conventional refrigerator causes a difficulty in using ice cubes when they are required, thus causing inconvenience to users.
In order to solve the above problem, a refrigerator provided with an ice-making device in a freezing chamber so as to automatically make ice cubes has been developed. Korean Registration Utility Model Publication No. 10-0152136 discloses the refrigerator provided with the ice-making device in detail. The conventional refrigerator provided with the ice-making device comprises an ice cube tray positioned in the freezing chamber, a water supply unit for supplying water to the ice cube tray, an ice cube storage container for storing obtained ice cubes before a user picks up the ice cubes, and a freezing chamber fan for supplying cold air to the ice cube tray. In order to make the ice cubes in the above refrigerator, the water is supplied to the ice cube tray, and the freezing chamber fan is operated to supply cold air to the ice cube tray.
However, since the freezing chamber fan of the above conventional refrigerator is operated to supply the cold air to the ice cube tray even when the water is supplied to the ice cube tray, vapor generated by evaporation of the water contacts the cold air, thus creating frost in the freezing chamber or conglomerating the ice cubes stored in the ice cube storage container.
That is, since the temperature of the water supplied to the ice cube tray in the summer is approximately 23° C., a small quantity of the water has supplied to the ice cube tray evaporates into vapor, and the vapor contacts the cold air circulated by the freezing chamber fan and then creates frost in the freezing chamber or conglomerates the ice cubes stored in the ice cube storage container into a lump, thereby causing a difficulty of efficiently discharging the ice cubes to the outside of the freezing chamber.